


so sweet and so cold

by entremelement



Series: semantics of affection [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Colors, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, of shared secrets receptacles and teenage woes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entremelement/pseuds/entremelement
Summary: Kunimi Akira has become so good at hiding it, the aftermath of a tense resonance. But the body betrays itself when Akira reaches out to touch Tobio, and he is shrugged away, from now until years later.It’s associative, so he knows. He recognizes the exact moment when his fumbling alone could no longer reach Kageyama Tobio.Kunimi Akira navigates his own feelings stemming from childhood guilt, and takes this bit by bit to rediscover Kageyama Tobio.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Kunimi Akira
Series: semantics of affection [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774777
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	so sweet and so cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fatal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatal/gifts).



> In which Twitter and ao3 user entremelement fulfills her months-long debt to miss [Elo.](http://ao3.org/users/fatal) This came to me in a fever dream, I think. That's why it's ( _Janis Ian, Mean Girls voice_ ) so _full of colors._ This was supposed to be a short drabble but.. well, things happen. This is in fulfillment of Elo's request for me to write one of the 'things you said/didn't say' prompts, **things you said that I wasn't meant to hear**.
> 
> Heavily inspired by William Carlos Williams' [This Is Just To Say](https://poets.org/poem/just-say). Title also comes from this poem. All the plum imagery in this fic is enough for you to crave for them, I guess.

It's the kind of pining that should have been stuffed as deep as one can manage in a receptacle, any sort will do. A conch. Open, cupped palms, red from prolonged icy-cold touch of plums straight out of the cooler. The concave dip, the slope right above the collarbone. An empty Marlboro Red pack, eager to be crushed and thrown straight in the bin. 

Kunimi Akira has become so good at hiding it, the aftermath of a tense resonance. But the body betrays itself when Akira reaches out to touch Tobio, and he is shrugged away, from now until years later.

It’s associative, so he knows. He recognizes the exact moment when his fumbling alone could no longer reach Kageyama Tobio. 

Recognizes that even on the same side of the court, Tobio is as frigid as hands fishing for plums submerged in water and ice from the cooler. They're flushed painfully crimson from endless seeking. Just as plums should float, but don’t, Tobio tucks himself away in one corner too, untouched. 

Tobio, never off-kilter in his insistent strive for perfection, deprived of solace on the court. Kunimi Akira unintentionally makes it so that he won’t find it off the court, either.

* * *

In Kitagawa Daiichi, Kageyama Tobio is all five stages of grief crammed into one lanky body.

Over time, a growth unexpected, he’s almost six feet tall--only one inch shy from where Kunimi was. Kunimi takes pride in this, holding that single inch above his head, as it’s the only thing he’s found to be better at. His own anatomy as against Tobio’s. 

In Karasuno, Kageyama Tobio fights grief but retains bargaining in his bones. Akira could see it: when Tobio permits the urge to call out their little middle blocker’s inadequacy, or when his cheek quivers slightly with a bad call. _But it’s one of the upperclassmen, I have to comply,_ Akira imagines Tobio’s inner turmoil. _I have to surrender my crown._

_Even if they can’t hit it, I have to set it. Or maybe I won’t. But they’re all here, ready to spike the ball-_

Akira identifies it in Tobio’s razor-sharp targeting gaze: what Kitagawa Daiichi couldn’t do for him, he overcompensates so that Karasuno would. 

He feels so stupid. This is more than the inch he holds over Tobio’s head.

* * *

Perhaps crimson, red, poppy, all the red that Akira’s mind could muster, is not reserved for heat alone. Eyes, too, turn red and watery in the crisp weather, as do leaves in fall. Who’s to claim that red only manifests itself in hot incandescence?

Akira takes this to heart, notes the flush of Tobio’s cheeks when tears pool in his eyes. They are standing three feet apart outside the gym, sun setting behind Tobio. Both of them are slightly sinking in moist dirt beneath their middle school-issued _Mizuno_ _Lightning Stars_.

 _I’m sorry,_ he says, before his throat constricts all solemn remorse. Pride and haughtiness drain out of him, tepid in their unceremonious exit. _I’m sorry for saying all those things._

What else is there to say that’s worthwhile?

Crimson cheeks, crimson hands, and then, even Tobio’s heart, undeniably crimson, worlds away from his own. 

* * *

Akira allows himself to take in the vast ocean before him, when sunlight hits hidden edges of waves. A few of the stars in this universe found so close by, making a home out of the water. 

He’d never been one to join in for a family sojourn outside of Miyagi, but how could he refuse, when he couldn’t wrest the very image of Tobio crying out of his head?

It’s characteristically quiet, save for the relentless crash of waves. Soles of his feet feel his weight against the rocky sand. Its shorefront empty. The sun, overhead, casts its light with a vengeance. Akira accepts it and finds beauty in its reflection on the blue of the sea, the already flushed skin on his forearms. 

This is where memory undoes itself, Akira decides. This is where regrets are flung--boundless nothingness accepting nothing.

Under this sunlight, as far as Akira’s concerned, the all-consuming heat is the only thing that hints that he’s still thoroughly alive.

There are no shells here, only rocks. Not even the ferocious crash of saltwater is enough to wash a conch ashore.

As against the recollection of Tobio careening halfway across their side of the court to save the ball, as against the minute hatred he’d dug out from himself, he struggles.

This absence requires Akira to picture a conch in his hand, an empty mollusk, ceramic-like in its weight, with edges jutting against his small palms. A hollow receptacle, devoid of life now. He cups an invisible shell to his ear and braces for a secret.

There are none, but he expects the extraordinary nevertheless. A few minutes pass by and still, he hears nothing. Just as non-existent as all his other expectations. 

He fills nothing with nothingness, with his fruitless, idiotic pining. His pointless, juvenile affection, shattered into pieces by his own unchecked and unexplored feelings of red--whatever red may be.

* * *

Akira finds Tobio hidden from sight almost a decade later, under the awning of a small grocery store. 

It is at this moment that Akira feels red again, along with many other hues he’s accumulated over the years--burgundy, for when his stomach turns in nervousness, feigned stoicism overpowered by flinching in anticipation. Sangria, for languid inebriation befitting of its name. Raspberry, like its taste on his tongue, sour and all at once cold, mouth stained bloody in the process of devouring. 

Only this time, there are no raspberries to eat, sangria to swim drunkenly in, or an oncoming attack to avoid in his burgundy haze. There is only Tobio, black windbreaker against the blue of a gym bag slung over his shoulder. Nothing to be forestalled. 

In his hand, large enough to cover it, a box--a sliver of red against white. In the other, hastily put behind him, something that seems to be lit. Smoke rises from where he’d placed his hand behind him, and Akira could only stiffen at the sight.

“You smoke?” were the first words to come out of him, not even a query on how Tobio had been, or a tell of a pleasant surprise, no. Today, it seems like a general acknowledgement of a fact happening right in front of his eyes was the way to go. 

Instantaneous, the way sangria fills his bloodstream, redder than blood.

Finding the act of hiding his cigarette futile, Tobio purses his lips into the tiniest grimace, while the rest of his body loosens up. He brings the cigarette to his lips and sucks on what seems to be a half-consumed stick by the filter. 

“Yeah.” Tobio lets the reply escape his lips along with the smoke. It’s a secret shared between them, and Akira is filled with unmitigated delight. 

“As a professional athlete?” Akira shifts in his place, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “Strange.”

“Nothing’s strange about stress, Kunimi.” Tobio folds the arm holding the box across his chest, then props his elbow on wrist, chin in the hand holding the cigarette. “What brings you here?”

Akira does not answer, and instead trails his eyes to the gymnasium a few blocks behind him. “Practice," he eventually states. 

“Hm,” Tobio stubs the unfinished stick against the smooth foil inside the empty pack and snuffs out the flame. The box’s flip top closed and warm in his hand. 

“Listen, Kageyama,” Akira says, catching a whiff of something burning as flame dies. “I-”

“Kunimi,” Tobio interrupts, his scowl slowly disappearing as he shakes the pack in his hand, cigarette butt tumbling audibly inside. “Stop apologizing.”

Akira discovers another shade of red in this encounter: scarlet--rising from Tobio’s nape, engulfing his cheeks.

* * *

Akira’s hand is stained from plums. 

On a night as humid as this, Seijoh third-years decided that it was the right time for the team to light fireworks in Iwaizumi-san’s garden—actually just a miniscule patch of barren soil. Oikawa-san, ever-superstitious, believed that this sort of activity should usher in new wins when both he and Iwaizumi-san depart from the roster, under Yahaba-san’s captaincy. 

Kindaichi sits right beside him on the ledge where wood meets the inside _tatami,_ and Oikawa-san’s right beside Iwaizumi-san, fiddling with the fountain firework placed squarely in the middle of that patch. Yahaba-san beckons Kyotani-san to help him carry the glass carafes out, tepid _genmaicha_ inside. Yahaba-san handles the tray with glasses, and on it, the glasses with ice. 

The first years make good use of this downtime, an opportunity to strip themselves of the last of their angst, of Nationals being narrowly out of reach. Beside Akira, a cooler filled with lychees and plums. Knowing how mindless lychee-peeling can get, Akira avoids the delayed gratification altogether and settles with plums, his second best. It takes him about five minutes to fish one out, and he’s numb to his elbow, submerged in the cold. His hand reaches for something round and smooth at the bottom of the cooler, gently pushing aside all the bumpy, rough lychees. He takes this soggy one and brings it to his mouth, not minding the ooze that comes after sinking his teeth in it. With the other hand, open and warm, he cups underneath the dripping juice, catching the continuous flow of red from its skin. 

With his hands and mouth stained, Akira minds his own mess. Kindaichi unravels another.

“It was nice seeing Tobio enjoy himself, huh?” At this, Akira flinches, his thighs stiffening, lifting him ever so slightly from the wood beneath him. Kindaichi stops swinging his legs off the ledge and notices.

With Oikawa-san’s groans and Iwaizumi-san’s swift, playful kick aimed at Oikawa-san at the foreground, Akira refocuses his vision. In them he sees a calm undisturbed, of growing old and chatting each other up on the patio--Oikawa-san’s head leaning gently on the _shoji_ _,_ Iwaizumi-san taking his hand. 

Instead, he has red. Cold, unfeeling red. Red on his hands, red welling up from deep within him, red in the way red is--unapologetically bright and noticeable. And Kindaichi notices. 

“You still have his email,” Kindaichi interrupts his internal self-assault, and Akira blinks away the last of it. He did think about retorting, but what Kindaichi’s mentioned is true. 

“So contact him.” 

Akira ruminates on it in the time it takes for juice to trickle down from forefinger and thumb to wrist, then from wrist to forearm. 

In the foreground, Iwaizumi-san’s hands back away from the cylinder on the floor before it shoots out sparks of blue, a mute whistle ushering the color out.

* * *

But then, perhaps, the only way to learn what red is was to go back to what it means for Akira. 

Red is what clouds his eyes when Tobio screams at him to do better. It’s the splotches of it on his wrist, on the small area where the volleyball is received countless times. It’s the sky in August, painted effervescent, streaks of pink and thin, sweeping clouds toning it down--but it’s red nevertheless.

Red is what Akira makes of it. It doesn’t matter now how it’s widely depicted as the color of anger. He’s not angry, he was never angry with Tobio. 

Not when he stuffed down his frustration and sat beside Kindaichi at the foot of the gym steps one fall day, the fire tree branches firm, leaves rustling. Not even when Kindaichi handed him his bottle of _Pocari Sweat_ , silent, simmering in his own thoughts. 

Not even when he clicked his tongue and let out a quick rant, meant only for Kindaichi. “It just sucks,” Akira starts. “Just because his grandpa died, he gets a free pass at being a jerk. And the worst part? We can’t even complain about it because he’s coach’s little go-getter.” 

No, not even when he perks up and the brisk, cool wind gently strokes his face. Not even when he looked up and saw Tobio, fists tightly clenched, knuckles white with rage. 

Red--Akira decides--is this stinging feeling, the beginning of Tobio pulling away. The fire tree leaves floating, falling in between them, and the chill of wind against Tobio’s cheeks, wet with tears.

* * *

When Akira wakes up, he finds nothing again. One arm underneath his pillow, and another arm over it, it feels like a punch to his gut when he rises and finds no evidence of a companion beside him. Just him, tangled on his own mattress on the floor, sunlight filtering through the singular window in his line of sight. 

His eyes trail to the floor beside his mattress, and he catches red again, and at this point, he would much rather be red-color blind than to see another red thing for the rest of his godforsaken life. He inches closer, half-rolling, half-pushing himself to the empty side of the bed, and sees a hastily-left pack of Marlboro Reds. It’s undeniably Tobio’s, and how pathetic of him to weep over a pack of forgotten cigarettes. 

Akira picks it up by a gentle thumb and forefinger, delicately, as if it kept a secret. He pushes the flip top and it reveals three sticks with orange filters, and a yellow BIC lighter. As if it was meant for him, Kunimi snatches one and puts it in between his lips.

What Tobio doesn’t know (and what he’s forgotten) won’t hurt him. Akira takes the lighter into his hand and forms a cup shielding the end of the cigarette with the other. 

The lighter makes a small scraping sound and he puts the flame close to the end. Akira inhales this in--this vague memory of what Tobio has become, this stressed, jaded boy, some lightyears away from where he was--and chokes back a sob when smoke escapes his lips. 

Akira hates this. He despises the way Tobio disappears without so much as leaving his scent on the pillows, on the sheets. The way his head perfectly fits in the area where his arm connects with shoulder, and the way he nestles into it so carefully, lest Tobio might break.

The way he’d bent over on command, and the way Tobio’s warm palm leaves a burning print on the small of his back, on his hip, mapping out his skin like a cartographer who’s known the streets and waterways of his body for decades. 

(Maybe Tobio’s got Akira memorized from the start, but only touch can unravel this picture.)

Tobio and the way his tongue tastes like nicotine, and for someone who’s never lit one, Akira could swear that it tastes a tad nutty. It’s the kind of flavor reserved for him on a rainy day. Tobio and how he fills him up and rips him apart so beautifully that even Tobio’s wordless grunts while pushing up inside him and against him sound like a classical masterpiece. 

So Akira sits on the mattress they had made love in, smoking his forgotten cigarettes, coughing fits in between, and wondering for the nth time in his lifetime whether or not Tobio had retained his junior high email.

* * *

Tobio yells “Kindaichi, Kunimi!” years later, as they’re walking out of the gymnasium, even after Akira had resolved to restrain himself from making any sort of connection with the man who left his bed cold. 

This is no longer a schoolboy crush gone awry, he tells himself, and when Tobio approaches with a grin tugging at his lips, he knows he’s just lied. 

“It doesn’t matter when or where, let’s play again. All three of us,” Tobio shuffles away from oncoming fans, allowing himself a moment of reprieve with him and Kindaichi. 

This is just a schoolboy crush. “Are you insane? Are you telling us we have to be Olympians and rise up to your level?”

At this, Tobio huffs out a quick laugh. “It doesn’t matter when or where, I said.” Akira cocks his head to the side. “Even as a grandpa, let’s.. together.” 

Kindaichi, on cue, laughs. Akira tells himself it’s just a schoolboy crush. A juvenile, petty, unrequited schoolboy crush. A crush gone awry, a crush lasting for more than a decade. 

“Kunimi,” Tobio interrupts his self-deception and shoots him a well-meaning smile. “You’ve still got my email, right?”

Tobio has sweaty cheeks, sweaty hands, and then, Tobio’s heart--what once was lightyears away from his own--now grows near. Now faded red.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, you've reached the happy ending, hooray!
> 
> I made a silly Sisyphus reference once on Twitter because Kunimi Akira is always so filled with angst, I simply said, "one must imagine Kunimi Akira happy." And so I kind of willed it into existence, but after all the angst had been gone. 
> 
> A few more notes:
> 
> 1\. [Accompaniment playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3x4MMVPtVRxXjYHevHTSMX?si=oAfMIXKXThCsDyb3ImAyGg)! Listen to all of them, especially Be Your Own 3am by Adult Mom. That's where I plucked the angst from. One might even call it.. angstpiration. Please don't maim me.
> 
> 2\. Another work which heavily influenced this one is Clementine von Radics' [Ten Love Letters](http://www.whiskeypaper.com/whiskeypaper/ten-love-letters-by-clementine-von-radics).
> 
> 3\. I'd like to thank [Lars](https://twitter.com/alliseeispink), also ao3 user [allicanseeispink](http://ao3.org/users/allicanseeispink), for bearing with my writecomplaints.
> 
> Hit me up on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/entremelement/)!


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